Thursday night's hill repeats took on a whole new meaning. I've run that hill hundreds of times but my first trip up this week made me panic. Why did I ever think I could run the C2C? There's no way I'll be able to do it. I'll die. They'll find me at Maddox Cove Road curled up in the fetal position praying for an earthquake that will reduce all the hills on the Avalon Peninsula to rubble.
The same thing happened on Saturday at the Figure 8 race. I thought the run would be fairly easy considering I had home field advantage, but when I started up hill from Octagon Pond back to the T'railway, all I could think was that in October I'll be followed by an ambulance for 20 kilometers, which is probably a good thing since I'm going to end up in one before the race is done.
Maybe I'm over reacting. Maybe I should do some research, figure out exactly what I'm in for. Knowledge will slay the fear.
I decided to look at the course elevation. There are four up hill sections. For some reason I thought there would be more. Race starts out downhill for one kilometer. So far so good. First uphill is one kilometer followed by another kilometer downhill. See, that's not so bad, right?
Hill number two is two kilometers. That's a long way up. It's like running Neil's Pond, only all uphill.Ok, don't panic, that's probably the worst of it.
Downhill for two kilometers, followed by uphill for three kilometers.
I was wrong. Knowledge feeds the fear fire and it's like Guy Fawkes night over here.
After pacing back and forth trying to stop from hyperventilating, I give the elevation chart one more glance. Downhill for three kilometers followed by three kilometers flat along Water Street. That I can do. I think I'll ignore the final slog up Signal Hill Road for now. Most people walk at least a portion of that section and I know I'll do the same.
That's enough knowledge for one day. I don't think I can handle knowing any more.
Instead, let's think about how this will be my last race of the year. Maybe of my life. Maybe I'll quit running after this. I'll become a race volunteer. Or I'll start sleeping in on weekends. Think of all the drawer space I'll have when I get rid of all my running clothes.
Yeah, that probably won't happen.
I'm sure Renee and Paula will be at Cabot Tower with tea when we finish racing. That's a good thought. I'll have an awesome new running shirt - Sugar says his C2C shirts are some of his favorites. I'll have that really amazing medal with the Forget Me Not's on it. I'll finally get to go to the post race reception. And I hope that I'll be able to say that I'm glad I did it.
It's going to be okay. I think it will really all be okay.
That is, until I run hills again this week.
No comments:
Post a Comment